


Bootstrap

by schmevil



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-28
Updated: 2010-01-28
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:28:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56539
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/schmevil/pseuds/schmevil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bootstrap gets bootstrapped, right over the side of the Black Pearl.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bootstrap

**Author's Note:**

> Pre Dead Man's Chest

He started drowning the moment the water closed over his head. Bill learned to swim when he was a babe, but everything he knew about treading water fled from him - there was only the weight pulling him under and water pressing in on him.

He had one last glimpse of the bastards who'd tossed him over - Barbossa's smug grin, and the others cheering and waving their swords - before he stopped seeing things altogether.

He can feel everything acutely. His eyes stinging from the salty water even though he has them shut tight. His lungs filling with water. People shouldn't be able to feel themselves drowning, he thinks. He waits for it to be over, for the sensations to end, but they don't.

He was caught by a wave during careenage once, and nearly drowned, smacking up against the hull and half-submerged. It's like that all over again, only this time there's no one to pull him onto the deck. They're likely still watching his descent - not a lot of entertainment on a ship - and waiting for it to be over.

Around him, not sinking like him, but caught in the current, are bits of seaweed and - he looks up - his hat is slowly making it's way to the surface. Maybe they'll drag it in. He can't see the Pearl, but he can see the way she's upset the water around him. He can see the detritus that went over with him. He can read the words on the spine of a book, his wife gave it to him the first time he left her for the ocean.

He can read the title clearly.

Instead of darker, his vision is only getting clearer and the water around him brighter. He gasps and sucks in another breath of water. Chokes on it when he realizes his lungs are _full_. Bill's coughing it all out, exchanging it for new water, but he's not _breathing_. A man can't breath under water. He isn't breathing, but he isn't dead.

He's been falling for an eternity, distance measured by the shrinking of the sunlight overhead. The sun, at first visible through the water overhead is growing dimmer as Bill continues to fall. The cannon, ironically strapped to his bootstraps with pieces torn from his own hammock is pulling him down swiftly towards the bottom. The symbolism of Barbossa using his hammock isn't lost on him. Every sailor is buried in his hammock and carried to the depths of Davy Jones' locker. Barbossa has buried Bill, too. But Bill isn't dead, yet.

He can no longer see anything but water and more water, in every direction. This, he thinks, is his punishment, his eternity.

The tragedy is when he finds that it doesn't have to be, and when he fails to refuse that better offer.


End file.
